Show 11 VL th part of tho the world wo me call peru to quote an old spanish writer Is it very remarkable and contains in it strange properties it never rains thunders elowe nor halle halls in all thia this coast which to s a matter worthy orthy of admiration peru ties nevertheless entirely within tho the tropics though it differs so an greatly from moat most other tropical rf aft glans nothing strikes tho the traveler voy voyaging ngIng southward from panama a especially during the later months of at the year eo so much as tho the remark remarkably ablo meteorological change bo he experiences when hen he passes cape blanco all alo way thither ho he feels stifled and opar or come by the heat but at that point ho h e suddenly sails into a EL temperate and delicious clime his ills landscape land scare alters also amazingly ho he emerges from one clothed with the exuberant verdure so associated with the tropics ca into a rainless and barren desert on ho the i other hand the th 0 long narrow strip of shore west of the andes stretching to tho the south of tho the capo cape has a temperature from 7 degrees to 10 degrees fahr higher than that of the refrigerated bon small amount of moisture therefore carried in the air Is to easily held suspended till it has entirely crossed this belt and impinged against the andean heights which aro are alpo there elves a barrier to the passage of any clouds from the atlantic ocean against this cold barrier the pacific moisture Is at last wrung out of the atmosphere as rain or snow when it flows down to the lowlands as rivers few of which after all ever succeed in reaching the sea forth for the 0 desert sands en route drink most of them up tho coast moreover presents a continental ledge extending seaward from the mainland under miles in width vast flock flocks of bird birds beyond this narrow fringe the ocean descends to profound depths of at thou than but cormorants and gannutz gan nuts nets each of tia two a species together with ith a pelican aro are the most valuable from an economic point of view aa as guano pro ducure city of the dead the first sanctuaries I 1 visited were in the chinena and Bal ballister listes pula goes in february 1912 what struck me greatly on approaching them was mats tho extraordinary absence of birda birds where I 1 was mas expecting to behold thou canda ands A greater surprise still awaited mo me on ascending to ho the extensive pla tau on which the birds breed brood the whole area was certainly dotted with seats nests which it was as evident were those of bougainvillea cormorant borax and of a pelican Pelic anus thagus so thickly pie they set together that it was difficult to te alao ones foot between two of at them without treading on the margana of both on the occasion of my visit this was of no moment silence reigned everywhere I 1 was surveying Ing an avian city of at tho dead stricken as it if with alth a plague the groat great majority of tho the nests still contained from two to four noet neat lings of every age from naked to halt fledglings all of at them dead sun baked and mum mined lanes on lanes of them I 1 dis covered on inquiry that in the oua ous month of november the avian pop of the islands began suddenly for rome unexplained reason to take wing and migrate no one yet knows known whither within four days of the first departures the whole colony had fled leaving their eggs and their helpless broods to carve sarve from hunger or to those more merciful avian robbers tho th gulls the vultures and the terno for tho the best part of at a week yeek so I 1 vai informed by one of the island watchmen the appealing cries of this vast multi tude floated out a long way may from the shore and were most heart reading to hear and as they began to grow faint oft wa 4 M V NV K MW I 1 A 0 sands of fathoms so the coast la Is alle with marine life of every kind and especially ally with mith hundreds of species of fiah this immense amount of food material attracts naturally correspondingly spon vast flocks of 0 marina birds these birds moreover owing to the arid and character of the region abiva remarked upon find ready prepared for them on the uninhabited coastal islands and rock just that barren and vegetation tree surface which they love to roost and nest upon and lr fr Is 11 because of this of the region that it Is pos possible for ala great de deposits of at guano due to thebe birds to accumulate un in the islands this fertilizing til Lil izing material so uit to the agriculturist forms from its chem chemical lal constitution the result of the nature of the birds diet the most perfectly plant fc od ad known and one not yet approached in tn its effects by any artificial product and of it peru possesses in the celebrated guano gunno islands situated on off ltd ita coast the largest deposits in the world the islands fregi by the bl birds ds as bleeding weeding laabes i laces are very numer numerous ouli and occur at various distances apart chiefly along or miles of coast and nowhere more than 20 miles oft off shore the most important are known as the lobos the guanape Gua nape the pesca dores the Bal ballister listes and the chincha archipelagoes the first named group 4 contains the largest islands but the two latter aro the meat moat important commercially tho the species inhabiting I 1 abose resort resorts belong to many families er with the fahn strength of the dying and the decreasing number of the living they became painfully pitiful to the eam of those on the island till finally tie je last survivor ceased from troubling the voracious loue rovers I 1 have which at that season hover over abo breeding grounds rallied in vat flocks to the walls of 0 distress making short work first of all of the more delectable eggs they fell upon the ten kenderest tends derest rest of the young ones on they gorged themselves to euch anch satiety as apparently to nauseate even their insall able stomachs for the bulk of the feast was left untouched to the num ber her of many millions |